About
Niclas Hagen

Niclas Hagen

I did my undergraduate studies at Lund University in genetics/molecular biology, as well as in sociology and political science in which I hold a masters degree.During 2009, I commenced my PhD studies in ethnology, working within the Basal Ganglia Disorders Linnaean Consortium (http://www.med.lu.se/bagadilico).My general research interest concerns the social and cultural aspects of science, particularly in relation to the biomedical sciences. As a scientific “hybrid”, which has experience from the natural, social and cultural sciences, I also have a strong interest in various theoretical and practical aspects of interdisciplinary science.

In 2013, I defended my Ph.D. thesis ‘Modern Genes –Body, Rationality, and Ambivalence’. The main objective of the thesis was to investigate the linkage between everyday life with a genetic disease and intrinsic patterns of modernity. The thesis is a compilation thesis that contains four individual articles each addressing the everyday experience of a genetic disease from different angles, with different research questions and theoretical presumptions. Each of the four articles has performed ethnographic investigations, mainly through semi-structured interviews, with individuals who in various ways are affected by Huntington’s disease, which is a genetic brain disease. Between 2013-2016, I worked in the interdisciplinary project Treatments for the Future -RNA editing for treatment of Huntington’s disease, which was a collaboration between medical researchers and researchers working within cultural sciences at Lund University. The medical side of the project aims at developing new treatments for Huntington’s disease, whereas the cultural scientific side of the project investigates the involvement and participation of patients in medical research.

Current research

Currently I am part of the multidisciplinary project Taking science to the crowd: Researchers, programmers and volunteer contributors transforming science online funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg foundation. The aim of the project is contribute to our understanding of how digital technologies are transforming the production of scientific knowledge as a consequence of scientists enlisting crowds of volunteers to contribute to scientific projects involving big data.

Research coordinator

Between 2015-2017, I was the research coordinator for the Network for Medical Humanities, as well as the coordinator for the Heritage and Wellbeing research cluster within at Centre for Critical Heritage Studies at Gothenburg University. Since 1st of June 2017, I am working as a research coordinator at Centre for Digital Humanities at Gothenburg University.